There are many Filipino students that thrive beyond regular school work like those who sell NFTs to preserve Philippine Eagles and those who win international competitions. Recently, a gravity experiment by a student from UP Los Banos is set to be tested on the International Space Station (ISS).
William Kevin Abran, an applied physics student, became a finalist in the Asian Try Zero-G (AZTG) 2022 competition. His experiment proposal was selected as one of the 24 finalists out of 201 submissions by 480 students worldwide.
Abran’s proposal titled Rotation of ‘Dumbbell-shaped’ objects in Space aims to figure out the behavior of dumbells in space compared to pliers. This will help in understanding the Dzhanibekov effect or the reason behind why the said objects could be exempted from the phenomenon.
The Philippine Space Agency led the local call for experiment proposals, which were evaluated based on scientific significance, novelty, safety, resource requirement, and feasibility. Abran’s entry made it to the final evaluation round by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’s experts and astronauts.
Meanwhile, Arban expressed that he was “happy to be selected” in a Facebook status after JAXA announced the results. He also has a TikTok account dedicated to his space-related interests, including a video describing his proposal on dumbbell-shaped objects.
Astronaut Koichi Wakata will conduct the experiments starting in the last quarter of 2022.
Banner: (L) Facebook/William Kevin Abran, (R) WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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